Home of a mother, wife, writer

Not even sure what to say about this week, really. Thought we were going to get some storms yesterday. Never quite happened. We did have quite a bit of wind yesterday and some rain. There’s a tree down by the road that got hit by a car a few years back. It kept leaning farther and farther into our yard. Well, last night it finally came down. Didn’t hit anything else when it fell at least. but, the pup seemed very unsure about even going into the yard.

Then, this morning I walked down to get the mail(since I realized I hadn’t gotten since Friday) Had a letter from the sheriff’s office. I get to report for jury duty in September. The week of my anniversary. I also have the kids’ yearly check-up scheduled for that Friday. So, I have to figure out how I’m going to get the kids to school, get down there(a good 1/2 hour drive…and I don’t drive), and make sure there’s someone here when the kids get out of school. And what to do about kids’ appointment at the end of the week. My mom lives closer, so I might be able to stay there for the week, but that doesn’t help with the rest of it. Trying to look at it as research, since a lot of my stories involve the law in some way, but still not looking forward to it. The last time I was in a courtroom was when I was about 12 and went with my grandma for Take Your Daughter to Work Day.

But, for right now, it’s Wednesday, which means it’s WiPPet Time!! I just finished the first draft of Protecting the Heart on Monday. So, I’ll share some from the final chapter of that. Declan’s just woken up in the hospital. I have 7 sentences(8+1+7=16=1+6=7)

He’d make sure she got some sleep. Once he saw her and saw for himself she was fine. “When can I get out of here?”

“Mr. Portor, I dug a bullet out of your chest less than twenty-four hours ago. You’re lucky you’re still alive.”

As for my progress so far this week. Well, let’s just say, last night I made it through half of today’s editing time. So, yeah, I’m ahead on things(also, why I’m actually able to work on this earlier in the day than I have been. The writing is going slower than I’d like, working on one for an hour a day(worked more on Monday because I was up early, words were pouring out, and I was so close to finishing), until I meet my weekly goal on it. Only about 1/3 of the way to my goal on Shed Some Light, which is second on my list. So, we’ll see.

Write 5000 words between 5 projects– 4150 words between 2 projects. This number is obviously different from what pacemaker has for each of my projects. the 5k is more of a minimum goal for me.

Protecting the Heart – 3059 words & finished! My initial goal was 80k, this came in at just over 68k. I’ll probably add more in revisions, though. – It was time to move past his own mistakes. Time to move on and let Piers do the same. They could never be together. All they did was hurt each other. *From epilogue, which is a short scene written from Xavier’s POV & set up for book 3. 😀

Shed Some Light – 1091 words – “Why do you even care? You’ve already told me I’m an idiot.””Yeah, at the same time I said I loved you,” she said, shoving against his chest. “Or did you conveniently forget that part?”

Stained by Ashes – finish revising Chapter 19and any more I get back this week. – I finished Chapter 19 on Monday. I currently have through Chapter 25 back. Transcribed all the notes into the master document. And started revising Chapter 20 this morning. Added 7 words on Monday and cut 34 today, so a total of -27 words for the week.

Healing the Heart – finish rewrites– got this done and cut 1875 words from it(this involved cutting 2 complete scenes out and changing a bunch of other stuff). Now to do the search 7 destroy then send it to beta readers. So, if anyone’s interested(might help if you’ve read Duty to Protect but probably not necessary) let me know.

Guarding the Heart – layer in world building details– haven’t touched this yet. Probably not until after I get Healing the Heart polished

Defending the Heart – finish Piers’ back story, start Spenser’s– making progress on Piers’ back story. A little over 4 handwritten pages. He’s just met Xavier and the other guys. It took me 8 pages to get to this point in Xavier’s story. Still hoping to at least finish it this week.

Side Projects – add 2500 words– I’ve added 652 words to Dance with the Devil. A little over 100 more words to meet my goal on it. Then, I’ll move on to the others. – “So, the punching bag kissed Devil on the throat, huh?” *walks away whistling. Just leaving that there with no context. 😀

Read: Writing Vivid Characters– 75% – At 62% Most of this is stuff I already know/do. Though, there are a few things I hadn’t thought of.

Listen: Targeted(Kendra Elliot) & In His Shadow(Tiffany Snow)– I finished both of these. I didn’t have a lot left on Targeted(which I really enjoyed), but I just didn’t want to stop listening to In His Shadow. There were a few things about the romance, I’m not quite sure about, but it’s the first book in a trilogy, so I’ll see where it goes. I started listening to A Dark Mind(T.R. Ragan) this morning. A little over 2 hours into it already.

Read: Finish Virtually Yours, Try with Me(Elyssa Patrick),Changing His Game(Megan Erickson), Patterns in the Dark(Lindsay Buroker), The Walls Around Us(Nova Ren Suma), Once in a Lifetime(Jill Shalvis), & the Broken Hearts’ Society of Suite 17C(LeighAnn Kopans) – I finished Virtually Yours(liked most of the stories in it. LOVED Wish I Might by Kait Nolan and Lip Service by Wendy Sparrow). Also finished Try with Me(liked this one, though it felt like there wasn’t a lot of conflict through most of the middle. Then, the end…I just bawled. Which I’ve felt the need to do for a while, so this was a good thing). I’m almost finished with Changing His Game and loving it.

Declan seems to have a one-track mind here, LOL. Not that I blame him; I’m not too fond of hospitals myself.

We ended up finally getting a good, soaking rain yesterday. Or more like a torrential downpour. I can definitely relate about the long list of back-to-school things and the busyness of the end of summer.

I hear you on the chaos that jury duty can cause, but… I actually found my last experience as a juror amazing (I worked on the grand jury for the time–incredibly useful insight).. I hope you get as interesting and research worthy an experience out of this chaos.

As for Declan? Can you blame him? I wouldn’t want to hang around (ask my husband about me and why I can’t use Percocet after a Cesarean section). Bad patients UNTIE!

I wish I would get chosen for jury duty. I’ve only gotten the “letter” once, but all of the cases for that month settled or were postponed, so all I had to do was call in on the assigned days. Good luck with your month of it.

Ugh. I haven’t done jury duty, but the prospect doesn’t appeal to me at all. Good luck with yours! I don’t drive either, so I’d probably have to get hubby to drive me every day if I did get picked to serve on a jury. But who knows? Maybe you’ll find some story fodder.

As always, I’m in awe of how many projects you’re able to balance at once. Awesome!

[…] Elliot) & In His Shadow(Tiffany Snow) – finished both of these(shared my feelings on Wednesday) and also finished A Dark Mind(T.R. Ragan). Which was really disturbing, but I still really enjoyed […]